LinkedIn Digital Success Series 3

End-user focus and why it's important

In previous posts, we’ve examined some of the reasons digital projects fail and how these pitfalls can be avoided. We’ve also explored how to create customer and team intimacy, and why it’s so important. In my latest blog, we’ll look at another equally essential ingredient, end-user focus.

The end-user is the term given to the person (or people) who use – or are intended to use – a product. So, end-user focus simply means prioritising – and never losing sight of – the needs of the end-user when developing a product or service. At Vidatec, we consider how the end-user would interact with a company or brand and what kind of relationship they’d have. You may be thinking this all sounds simple and obvious however it’s surprising how often people misunderstand the needs of the end-user, leading to digital project failure.

Take, for example, the often-used illustration of King Charles III and Ozzy Osbourne. When it comes to demographics and market segmentation, both are British, male, white, wealthy, twice married and born in 1948. Yet it’s obvious for everyone to see that the similarities – probably – stop there. So why do companies so often design products and market to people with similar demographics in such a simplistic way?

To consider another example, look at climate activist Greta Thunberg and YouTuber JoJo Siwa. These young women are the same age, have a considerable social media presence, and have been named in Time’s 100 most influential people in the world. Yet, it’s likely that Thunberg’s followers have never heard of Siwa and vice versa. You might even find that Thunberg has more in common with the climate conscious King Charles III!

People are more complex than their nationality, gender, socio economic group, age, and occupation; they have a myriad of different interests, likes and dislikes – and personality preferences. Assessing them in such crude terms is unlikely to produce effective, long-term results. Any company wishing to avoid digital project failure must understand the importance of end-user research and testing to fully understand their requirements and respond accordingly – before going to market. To develop a more accurate understanding of people and how they respond to different stimuli – which informs the end-user experience – a more sophisticated methodology is needed.?

Understanding human behaviour is key

At Vidatec, we believe the key to designing for the end-user is understanding human behaviour. We question, we innovate, we explore what technology can do – all to improve people’s experience of life. Whether it’s to improve revenues, reach new customers and markets, improve digital service delivery or simply get ahead of the competition, it’s vital to deliver against end-user experience.

Truly delivering against end-user experience involves bringing knowledge of how people work, and how technology works, then seamlessly delivering the desired outcome for our customers and ultimately the end-user.

For us at Vidatec, investing time in developing awareness of our customers through Insights Discovery (as outlined in my previous post) is an important part of achieving this. Using colour to ensure everyone has a common language to communicate is well worth the investment because it helps us understand each other’s strengths and possible challenges and how to adapt and connect within our own team and the teams of our customers.

This deeper understanding of human behaviours helps us to focus more sharply on the end-user. It means we don’t try to develop the same products and services for King Charles III and Ozzy Osbourne or Greta Thunberg and JoJo Siwa – unless they’ve asked us to of course! It also means we don’t market to them in the same way – unless we’ve found a similarity after all.

Tailoring communications for different preferences

Another important factor to consider is how tailoring communications for different personalities can impact the end-user experience. Depending on the situation, the information being shared and an individual’s preferences, how you communicate could be the difference between project success and project failure. Rather than communicating in a generic ‘corporate lingo’, or a single and rigid brand identity, brands can look at adjusting their communication styles to fit different users, based on their personality types. This concept is being applied through features like Google autofill, Word text suggestions, and weekly insights from your work suite. At Vidatec, we’re using the Insights Discovery model to understand preference and apply the language of colour, while our innovation and end-user focus is taking our UX to the next level.

If you’re working towards building an application/portal that’s UX-enabled with a deeper understanding of human behaviour, it’s time to rethink the fundamentals. The next step towards the future of digital experiences is developing a tailored fit for every user with the power of AI.

Ultimately it all starts with awareness and ends with end-user focus, leading to the delivery of better digital outcomes.?